You wouldn’t know it from following the charts, but this has already been a huge year for pop music. That may sound paradoxical, but the last six-plus months have offered a wealth of exciting options: a blockbuster record that depicts a star’s attempt to actually evolve (what a concept!), a romantic soundtrack that supersedes its film, and a number of electronic and alt-pop-minded artists making fascinating strides. Sure, you won’t find many songs from these albums on a Hot 100 that’s currently dominated by Ella Langley, Taylor Swift’s Toy Story contribution, and Olivia Dean’s nearly year-old album, but the first half of 2026 still managed to inject some life into a pop world that had been feeling quite stagnant.
With some major releases approaching in the back half of the year—Phoebe Bridgers’s return and Ariana Grande’s relaunch post-Wicked, to name a couple—now’s a good time to reflect on which albums have caught our attention in 2026 so far. Here are 10 records worth checking out before we find out what, exactly, a David Cronenberg feature sounds like.
10. Kim Petras, Detour
Petras’s third album is filled with great pop songs—from the cute and catchy “I Like Ur Look” to the jangly “Jeep” to the campy “Basketball,” she employed new collaborators and refreshed her sound in a wonderful way. But the centerpiece of the album is “Brutalist,” a genuinely arresting piece of pop songwriting that I haven’t been able to shake since its release in May. Petras wrote the song (produced by Nightfeelings and Porches) about her architect father driving her to gender-affirming care as a child, pointing out unique structures along the way: “There was this one building that got torn down, and they built a really ugly one instead. … My dad would complain that they tore down something beautiful,” she told V Magazine about the track. Petras compares this to how others perceived her transition: “It’s not there no more because they tore it down / They really ruined it,” she sings about the building before shifting the lens to herself. “Again and again, didn’t come back a man / I guess I ruined it.” It’s an evocative metaphor made all the more visceral by the fact that Petras has rarely sung of her trans identity so directly. The song deals with remarkably complex emotions in succinct fashion, all while maintaining the melodic sensibility of, you know, a pop song you can sing along to. On a strong record worth the investment from front to back, “Brutalist” stands out as a stunner.
9. Joyce Manor, I Used to Go to This Bar
Joyce Manor have carved out a niche as indie rock’s most consistent purveyors of 15-to-20-minute rushes of nostalgic pop punk, perfect for cracking open a tallboy and remembering some guys. I Used to Go to This Bar leans into what the California band does best, but it also proves that, seven albums in, they’re still trying stuff! It’s refreshing to hear the Adam Schlesinger–esque flourishes of “Falling Into It” or the breezy bounce of “After All You Put Me Through” from a band with as little to prove as Joyce Manor. And they were rewarded for their continued craft: “All My Friends Are So Depressed” (side note: how did they not already have a song with that name?!) and the title track are the band’s first songs to ever chart at all, peaking respectively at no. 19 and 18 on Billboard’s alternative airplay chart. It kind of makes sense—for a band as timeless as Joyce Manor, I wouldn’t be surprised if their peak is still ahead of them.
8. Olivia Rodrigo, you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love
Olivia Rodrigo had built a reputation as millennials’ favorite pop star, thanks to her proclivity for pop punk and the stark influence of Avril Lavigne and Paramore on her music. But she put Gen X in her crosshairs when she started borrowing from New Order, the Cure, and Depeche Mode for her third, and best, record. Still wearing her inspirations on her sleeve, Rodrigo incorporated the idiosyncratic synths and whirs of ’80s new wave and post-punk in service of some of her most inventive (and least derivative) music to date.
“The cure,” for instance, is easily the most impressive pop single to permeate the mainstream since Chappell Roan’s “Good Luck, Babe!” two years ago, with its rapid strings and hushed verses building up the tension before unraveling in stunning fashion. Further listens also reveal the strength of some of the album tracks—I’ve been stuck on “u + me = <3,” a sweet and addictive earworm that sounds like the type of song you could build a ’90s rom-com around. The funny and confessional “maggots for brains” and the bittersweet “purple” also showcase Rodrigo’s growth from a prodigious diarist to a uniquely intriguing voice in modern pop.
7. Vince Staples, Cry Baby
Staples’s 2026 record was destined to take him in a new direction: After his departure from Def Jam in 2024 and the cancellation of his Netflix show in January, he was working with a truly blank canvas for his first independent album. On Cry Baby, his seventh record, he employed buzzy guitars and rolling drums for a full-on rock album—perhaps his biggest sonic shift since experimenting with PC Music back on 2017’s Big Fish Theory. The riffs are deep and rich and cool. From the noisy lead single, “Blackberry Marmalade,” to the fuzzed-out “TV Guide,” Staples went deep into his punk playlists to fill out the sound of Cry Baby. And he looks to a wealth of rock history to inform his exploration of politics, racism, and the long tail of America’s most pressing issues, all with the trademark urgency that’s made him one of hip-hop’s most exacting writers for well over a decade. On “White Flag,” for example, he’s weary of facing the same injustices over and over again (“Hard to mourn from in the casket,” he notes), and later, he uses Slick Rick’s 1989 single “Children’s Story”—which warned against a life of crime—to demand action against police brutality on the funky “The Big Bad Wolf.” The rock sounds Staples is toying with are rooted in the history of Black America, but his vision of the present is as clear-eyed as ever.
6. Charli xcx, Wuthering Heights
Apologies to Emerald Fennell, but I don’t know if there’s ever been a bigger discrepancy between how much a film impacted me and how much its soundtrack did. And to push that even further, I can’t think of another soundtrack that captured the themes and aims of its film better than the film itself. I mean, nothing sums up Emily Brontë’s seminal novel better than the phrase “I think I’m gonna die in this house,” which is repeated by Charli xcx and Velvet Underground legend John Cale over what can best be described as “ominous whooshes.” But Charli’s music also perfectly captures the film adaptation’s doomed romance between Margot Robbie’s Cathy and Jacob Elordi’s Heathcliff. “The chains of love are cruel / I shouldn’t feel like a prisoner,” goes the sweeping chorus on “Chains of Love,” a stirring, romantic epic fit to accompany any one of cinema’s torrid love stories.
What makes this great soundtrack a great album, though, is that Charli went deep into her True Romance bag for lush strings and synths that make Wuthering Heights a rich, rewarding listen all on its own. From the kinetic bounce of “Dying for You” to the yearning cry of “Always Everywhere,” the record easily stands among Charli’s best work. We’ll see if her forthcoming Music, Fashion, Film joins it, but even if it doesn’t, Wuthering Heights was a resounding success to kick off Charli’s cinephile era.
5. Kelela, new avatar
Thank God Kelela and PinkPantheress found each other. With nearly 20 years separating them, their budding multigenerational partnership has yielded some fascinating R&B: Their first collaboration—“Bury me,” from Pink’s 2023 album, Heaven knows—leaned into Pink’s wheelhouse as a bite-size bit of glimmering, sultry electropop. On Kelela’s new avatar, which just dropped last week, they’re together again on the aptly titled “the bridge,” this time shifting toward the D.C. vocalist’s sensibilities. Clocking in at nearly four minutes—essentially an epic for Pink—it’s a slinky, sexy duet in which Kelela’s rich voice blends seamlessly into Pink’s soft one, all while incorporating those U.K. garage drums signature to the latter’s oeuvre. It’s a microcosm of how Kelela, whose otherworldly tunes exist out of time, keeps her ear to the ground for innovative sounds—and voices—to weave into her uniquely experimental brand of alt-R&B.
4. feeble little horse, bitknot
The road to feeble little horse’s fantastic third record wasn’t smooth: It’s the Saddle Creek outfit’s first effort without founding member Ryan Walchonski. The band went on an abrupt hiatus in the weeks following the release of their breakthrough album Girl With Fish, and the multi-instrumentalist announced his departure from the group less than a year later. The band’s next project was bound to be a surprise, even if it wasn’t announced just days before its release, as bitknot was. And, what do you know, feeble little horse returned with their loudest, weirdest, and biggest music yet—sounds that would’ve raised the eyebrows of anyone expecting the twee shoegaze of Girl With Fish. Their new album is full of unique song constructions, like the way opener “Doorway” builds its hushed, talky first verse into a blast of distorted guitars or, later, how “Upside Down” shifts Lydia Slocum’s voice into focus briefly between breakdowns. These new sounds further serve the band’s minimal lyricism: A plaintive line like “Are we really different, or did I miss the exit? / ’Cause now we’re taking big steps in opposite directions” feels extra poignant in the context of the fuzzy, twinkling “Rewind.” It would have been great to have feeble little horse back in any form, but that they experimented so successfully in their time off makes their return that much more exciting.
3. underscores, U
“Last night I had a wet dream to the perfect song,” April Harper Grey, a.k.a. underscores, opens her track “Music.” “I know, I know I’m too far gone.” With sounds this gigantic, what use is there in reining in a single impulse? Thankfully, she does nothing of the sort on U, the San Francisco hyperpop punk’s absolute blast of a third record. Vibrant, crunchy synths abound. The music is harsh and ethereal in equal measure. It’s also funny, like when she describes her version of fame and excess (“Eat at restaurants with names written in cursive,” she observes on “Hollywood Forever”) or when she’s so lovesick she finds herself moved by Christian rock on “Wish U Well.” Grey is clearly a part of the 100 gecs coaching tree. But it’s not all snark—Grey puts every emotion on display on U. Just listen to how she earnestly evokes Jason Derulo’s “Whatcha Say”—who could forget?—on “The Peace” and morphs it into a gorgeously raw and moving standout. Push everything to its limits, and you might get something inexplicably pure in return.
2. Ratboys, Singin’ to an Empty Chair
Ratboys have become one of the most reliable sources of profound introspection and emotional truth in indie rock these days, especially as they’ve honed their blend of emo and alt-country. On their sixth record, Singin’ to an Empty Chair, they brought back Death Cab for Cutie’s Chris Walla—whom they first teamed up with on their great 2023 record, The Window—on production duties for another collection of thoughtful ditties, this time through the framing of an imagined conversation with an estranged loved one. Julia Steiner’s voice shimmers as she sings of reckoning with an elder’s trauma (“Know You Then”) and recounts childhood memories tinged with melancholy (“Just Want You to Know the Truth”). The record is a contemplative, moving portrait of a broken relationship that gets deeper with each listen, but its thesis statement is right there on the first track: “What’s it gonna take to open up this time?”
1. Slayyyter, Wor$t Girl in America
“He wanna fuck Slayyyter / Richard, we should link later”—that sound you hear is thousands of Letterboxd users putting their phones down and looking into this “the club” they’ve been hearing so much about. But Slayyyter, who will also kindly explain David Lynch to the uninitiated, might actually prefer to just stay in and watch Slacker. Her third record, Wor$t Girl in America, is full of brash, maximalist, sweaty songs to soundtrack your next self-destructive act or bout of hangxiety—they’re decidedly anti-party anthems. For her best body of work yet, she turned to the “iPod music” of her formative years (i.e., Crystal Castles or “the kind of thing you’d hear on Gossip Girl”) for some truly diabolical clashes and clangs to accompany an electropop vision of her St. Louis coming-of-age.
These songs are abrasive, though not devoid of Slayyyter’s internet-bred humor: That Linklater reference sneaks its way into “Crank,” one of the hardest capital-B Bangers on the album (as does the seminal mantra “I get so gay off that tequila”—the English language is so beautiful). Elsewhere, she employs nasty, gnarly synths for the tongue-in-cheek “I’m Actually Kind of Famous” and gets an ego boost from going Tumblr viral on the bass-heavy “Old Technology.” But there’s a sense of loneliness and alienation lingering beneath it all—check out the striking music video for “Beat Up Chanel$,” which finds Slayyyter singing of materialist excess against a backdrop of a sprawling suburban hell. Wor$t Girl in America is both the come-up and the comedown, and a vivid depiction of how life feels when you can’t differentiate between the two.
